Building a Government That Works for Everyone

Scot Barker is Chief Innovation Officer for the City of Burlington, Vermont, where he leads digital and organizational transformation, operational strategy, and cybersecurity across municipal services. Known for aligning technology with public impact, he brings deep expertise in governance, process design, and leadership. A lifelong learner, Barker is committed to building innovative, socially driven organizations.

Through this article, Barker highlights the importance of aligning digital transformation with accessibility, community engagement, and human-centered leadership in government.

Let’s begin with my leadership philosophy: to hire people smarter than me, define success, and then get out of their way and let them do their job. That philosophy is the result of a lifetime of learning and having a couple of great mentors in my career. With a non-traditional background (undergraduate degree in History, Master’s degree in Higher Education Administration), I came into tech originally because I understood technology and how to teach people who didn’t know how to use technology to be comfortable around it. My mentors realized I could see connections where others didn’t, and helped me capitalize on that. I have a passion for learning new things, and I can communicate and connect with people. All of that allows me to be effective as the Chief Innovation Officer at the City of Burlington, VT.

Keeping Citizen Needs at the Core of Government Innovation

Accessibility and engagement must be at the core of everything we do. Accessibility, from a technology and innovation perspective, is made up of two main components: those efforts to make sure the digital environment allows all people to leverage technology in ways that work for them (screen readers, captions, accessible design, etc.), and equitydriven accessibility, which refers to going beyond the “classic” accessibility definition and works to actively dismantle racial, class, and economic barriers. Engagement seeks ways to create meaningful opportunities for the public to participate and collaborate in their community. It requires us to be more transparent, responsive, and accountable to the people living in and visiting our community, to ensure we are inclusive and equitable in our services and communications, and to give people a sense of investment in their community.

Strategies to Improve Community Engagement and Transparency

By way of a short story, my daughter attended college in Montreal, Quebec. One day, we were talking on the phone, and she asked me to hold on because she had to get her food delivered. Living in foodie Montreal, I was excited to hear about what great food she had ordered. Turns out, it was McDonald’s. Really? McDonalds? I asked? You live a block from a McDonald’s, you could just walk there. Her response: “Yeah, but then I’d have to talk to someone, and this way, I could just order it online and they bring it to me.” That made me realize she’s never coming into City Hall to buy a dog license. As a result, while we’ll never close down City Hall and tell people they can’t interact with us in person, we need to find other ways to engage the people in the community. To accomplish this, we’ve been working to bring online more digital avenues for the community to interact and engage with the City including more inclusive and centralized meeting and agenda management tools, better online applications for permits, licenses, etc., and a new website that is more accessible than any the City has had in the past. And in many ways, we’re just getting started.

Digital and organizational transformation should bring the municipality and the community closer together. It should allow for more, better, and deeper engagement. It should make municipal services more equitable and accessible.

Confronting Cybersecurity Threats in Municipal Operations

As with any cybersecurity situation, the most pressing threat is us, the employees of the City, because people are always the weakest link in any organization. Regardless of how many firewalls, antivirus tools, or password requirements we have in place, people are still the weakest link. We’ll be moving too fast and will click on a link that looks legitimate but delivers malware, or results in a successful phishing attempt. We’re addressing it through regular cybersecurity trainings, email reminders, group and individual conversations, and programs that help us better educate our users on what to look for and how to respond.

Balancing Data Security with Transparent Governance

Probably 98 percent of what a municipality does or creates is public record. That presents challenges when trying to maintain transparency. We recently earned Silver Certification with What Works Cities. We accomplished that in large part because we created documentation, an open data portal, policies, and other tools that help us leverage data-driven decision-making across the City. Through all of that, we work to ensure our transparency doesn’t share PII or other information that shouldn’t be shared. Often, that means people going through documents before they are shared to scrub them of information that shouldn’t be shared with the public.

Leveraging AI to Enhance City Services

Like many municipalities, we are just scratching the surface of how we’ll leverage AI in the next few years. Indeed, we’re looking to AI to help us become more effective and efficient. AI should help us more easily share information with the public through improved natural language search or quickly scrubbing documents of PII. AI should also help us automate more processes, from automatically ingesting AP/ AR invoices into our financial system to possibly helping make better, faster, and more consistent decisions on permits. I am also looking for AI from the “good guys” to better counter malicious cyberattacks from the “bad guys.” In many ways, AI promises to be all things to all people. We know that isn’t the case, so we need to figure out where it can help us become more efficient. That will help us leverage people and their creativity to create a better community to live, work, and play.

Guidance for Municipalities Navigating Digital Transformation

Mainly, don’t stop. Yes, you’re going to miss the mark sometimes. That’s OK. Keep trying. Ask people what they want and what they need. Be ready to listen and then determine how to address those needs. Digital transformation should bring the municipality and the community closer together. It should allow for more, better, and deeper engagement. It should make municipal services more equitable and accessible. Internally, digital transformation promises increased efficiency, leading to better outcomes, better services, and better quality of life inside and outside the government.